A/N: I will admit to veering away from the storyline a bit. No one has accused me of this, but I thought I should let you all know that most of these last chapters have been rather spontaneous and not what I particularly had in mind. I don't dislike them , and hopefully you don't either, but I'm going to try and stick to my original out line from now on. This chapter is also slightly short. Sorry!

Disclaimer: I do not own Corpse Party.

Chapter 14

Ayumi shut her locker carefully. In the time it had taken to redo the school, her wrist had healed completely. Her fight with Rumiko had been completely forgotten and neither of them had been punished. Misaki had come to visit multiple times throughout her hospital stay, but Yoshiki had not contacted her since their fight.

She had no idea what happened to him. What happened between them. She had seen, on the first day back, him and Rumiko, holding hands and laughing with their group of rebels. She decided she wouldn't speak to him. It wasn't worth it.

As she walked upstairs to her next class, she bumped into Satoshi.

"Ayumi! Glad to see you feeling better! You gave us all a big fright!"

She couldn't help but internally acknowledge that those were the exact words her English teacher had said to her. "Yeah," she said, rubbing the back of her neck and biting her lip. "It was frightening to be in that situation."

They went awkwardly silent. What had they talked about when they were together? What were their common interests? How had she forgotten he existed? Because you became infatuated with someone else, her conscience whispered. She shook her head to remove the thought.

"Are you okay?" Satoshi was looking down at Ayumi, concerned. She realized she must have been shaking her head a bit too forcefully.

"Oh, yeah! I'm fine!" More awkward silence. "So... how are things with Naomi?"

Satoshi looked relived for their to be a real topic to their conversation. He smiled warmly. "Oh, things are great. Naomi, she's a really sweet girl, you know? And she's good at lots of things. She can sew, she can play piano, she can cook. She can also take me down in fight if she wanted to. She not a housewife." They both laughed a little. "You know, things are just... sublime. Like, peaceful. Serene." His smile settled, like he was thinking about her with joy. His eyes glazed over at the thought of her and he looked off into the distance.

He seemed to come back to reality after a second or two. "So, how are things on your end? Find anyone special yet?"

"No. Well, actually..."

She thought about Yoshiki. About the roof. About his eyes. His grin. The way his silhouette looked in the sunlight. His soft-looking hair. His pushy attitude. His warm heart. The fire. How he caught her. The puke-covered shoes. The look of relief. The hospital. The hospital. The something. The feeling they had between them, that electricity. The way they were able to drink each other in, the way they could see each other in a bright light. Lovely. She thought about the word lovely.

She thought about Rumiko.

The tousled hair.

The hickey.

The hand-holding.

The smiling.

The looking.

The everything.

"No. I haven't found any body yet."

It was now February. Snow was melting and then drifting back. Ayumi was immersed in school work. She hadn't spoken to Yoshiki in a month. She hadn't seen him in two weeks. She felt as if maybe, just maybe, he had forgotten about her. Maybe he had run off and eloped with Rumiko. Maybe she was pregnant. Maybe they would make a happy family together one day. Maybe Ayumi was out of the picture.

But she wished she could forget about Yoshiki. She wanted to forget him. Erase him. Get him away. She wanted to move on.

But how long was that process? For her, it was taking forever.

She sat at her desk in her room. Pictures hung up on the wall in front of her. She gazed at them, sighing. There was one from cheer. One of her and her friends at a party. One of her and Satoshi that she still had yet to take down. One from the hospital, tubes in her nose. One of her and Misaki. Plentiful ones of other school days, old photos, and landscape pictures.

And there.

Right there.

A class photo.

And standing at the back, left corner, hands in pockets, steely eyes set on the camera, grin amok.

Yoshiki.

And he was beautiful.

In that moment, her stomach erupted and her heart raced.

She really liked him.

Really.

And she was broken.

Yoshiki walked into Rumiko's room. She stood up, angry.

"Who let you in? What are you doing here? What do you want?"

"I let myself in. I need to talk to you."

She huffed. "What is it now? You're always so needy."

"We need to work harder. Do more. For this thing to work, you need to put in effort."

Rumiko huffed again. "Yoshiki, I have work."

"I don't care. This needs to happen. I thought you wanted revenge. I thought you cared about this... this... project."

"But, Yoshiki, I don't have time."

"This needs to happen," he repeated.

"What needs to happen," she whined.

"This," he motioned between them.

Rumiko raised a brow, finally understanding. She smiled seductively and carefully put her books away. She sauntered up to him. "Okay... Where do we start?"

Yoshiki looked away. "Uh... I don't care."

She smashed her lips against his. Rumiko was an awful kisser. No passion. No feeling.

She pushed her body against his, she touched him, she worked her fingers through his hair.

Yoshiki hated every second of it.

He didn't want Rumiko.

He wanted Ayumi.

So why was he doing this?